How does WikiLeaks work?

WikiLeaks is a controversial "not-for-profit media organization" that disseminates secret, leaked information to the public. But how exactly does this group work? And why does it exist? Marshall Brain takes a look at WikiLeaks in this episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Brainstuff from house stuff works dot com, where
smart happens Him Marshall Brain with today's question, how does
wiki leaks work. Let's imagine that you have learned a secret,
and this secret is so important or so damaging that

(00:23):
you need to tell someone. But let's also imagine that
you need to remain anonymous. For example, you might fear
that you would face retaliation, jail, or perhaps murder if
people found out who revealed the secret. What would you
do in a situation like this, You might go to
the government, or perhaps to the police, but you might

(00:44):
be concerned that the government might be a part of
the problem, or that they might bury your secret or
do something to you that would be unfortunate. In other words,
if you have a big, dirty secret, especially one that
involves the government itself, it may be hard to get
the word out anonymously. In that case, you might want

(01:04):
to try wiki leaks at WikiLeaks dot org. WikiLeaks describes
itself in this way. Wiki Leaks is a not for
profit media organization. Our goal is to bring important news
and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure,
and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our
journalists that anonymity is important to maintaining Wiki Leak's incoming

(01:29):
flow of information. WikiLeaks claims that it has never blown
the cover of any informant, and WikiLeaks provides a number
of ways to submit material, as well as instructions for
ensuring anonymous Internet submissions. Based on its promise and track
record of anonymity, WikiLeaks has been able to break several
important releases of secret material, and this really gets to

(01:53):
the heart of the Wiki leaks process. First, someone has
to gain possession of secret material in some way, and
then that someone has to trust Wiki leaks enough to
send it in where might the leaked material come from?
In the case of the Sarah Palin Yahoo email account
and the Climate Research Unit email account, a hacker had

(02:16):
to break into the accounts and steal the emails. In
the case of the British National Party membership list, the
website for that organization accidentally posted its membership list on
its website for a short period of time and someone
snagged a copy before it disappeared. But by far the
most common and most damaging source of leaks is insiders

(02:37):
who secretly collect the information and then send it to
Wiki Leaks. Insiders might do this out of a sense
of justice or as a form of retaliation against an employer.
Whatever the motive, several of the resulting leaks have been spectacular.
For example, an insider managed to leak an audio and
video stream recorded during an Apache helicopter attack that killed

(03:01):
civilians in Iraq. This leaked video is the one that
put wiki leaks on the map, because WikiLeaks was the
sole outlet for that video, and the video was so
incendiary that most major media outlets around the world picked
it up. It was incendiary because two Reuters reporters were killed,
because the US military tried to cover up the incident,

(03:23):
and because the military personnel involved used rather amazing language
during the attack that did not reflect well on US forces.
Since that watershed moment, WikiLeaks has benefited from several more
major insider releases. For example, WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands
of pages of information known as the Iraq War Logs,

(03:46):
and it has also come into possession of hundreds of
thousands of U S diplomatic cables. These cables revealed behind
the scenes comments and actions by US diplomats that have
proven quite embarrassing to the United States and its allies.
If you think about it, wiki leaks should not be necessary,
at least in the United States. The U s Government

(04:07):
is supposed to be government by the people and for
the people. Such a government should be completely transparent to
the entire population in every action it takes. Unfortunately, the
US government appears to be far from transparent, and wiki
leaks is helping to remove that opacity, one leak at
a time. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,

(04:29):
Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuffwork staff as we
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